A career in the making
Born in Mumbai, India, and with a background in IT, Ashish Tiwari has been living in Luxembourg for the past year, where he works as a Senior Financial Analyst at Amazon. Throughout his professional path, he has worked in India, the UK and Singapore and chose to pursue his MBA in Lisbon.
Although as a kid Ashish wanted to be either a pilot or an astronaut, he always had a slight inclination towards data and technology. He also liked to disassemble and reassemble toys and clocks – sometimes he would be successful in this task, while other times learning from his failures.
The choice to become an IT Engineer was something natural, as he started programming when he was 13: “I was attracted by the ´detail´ part of it, to get to know things with some depth”. Today, he still has a soft spot for “ethical hacking”. As he completed his course at the University of Mumbai, he was offered two proposals by different companies, but decided to pursue a tech-driven role in Accenture, as it was closer to his family, where he stayed for over six years.
His ever-changing responsibilities at Accenture were marked first by analysing and evaluating systems to see if they met the business requirements, and later by the end of his tenure, doing risk and stakeholder management. He also worked for seven months in the UK and Singapore during this period. His focus during his time abroad was mainly on top banks, as an implant from Accenture, dealing with technology consulting.
“Although I loved my job very much, it was too technical and I was missing the exposure to the business side of things. I felt I needed to undergo a shift in my professional life, to take a year off to understand the business world, meet new people with different backgrounds and in-turn develop myself as an individual.” These are the reasons why Ashish decided to do an MBA.
According to Ashish, “when you really put in the required effort and have the right mind-set, you can do things that will amaze you”. With this mindset he decided to apply to The Lisbon MBA program as he wanted to pursue a one-year MBA with a small batch size, a strong mix of international experience and a good return on investment. From his experience, he remembers learning a lot from his peers who represented 17 nationalities.
He highlights: “It was interesting to compare how I used to work and what I observed in my colleagues. I tend to focus more on the vision or the end goal and not so much on the process. So, along the way, I may skip some steps of the process, as long as we get results. On the other hand, some of my colleagues were very organized in terms of defining and following processes. If we set up criteria as a group, we had to meet them. So, the effort that we had to make to work together and adjust to different cultural backgrounds and styles of work was really interesting in terms of self-learning and adapting.”
This proved very useful for Ashish when coping with different business environments. “From whatever I have experienced, business intentions in the UK and Luxembourg are very much about getting the results. The process is important, but the main focus is ´on getting the right results´. In India, my leaders had a long-term strategic thinking. It was essential to assess whether we were heading in the right direction and if we were ready for the time to come. In Portugal, I felt there was and still is a great vision for the future years, but sometimes it is lost with the execution.” These were some of the cultural differences Ashish experienced in the countries he worked in.
Towards the end of the MBA, Ashish had two proposals to work at two major Portuguese companies. He had almost decided to go for one of them, until Amazon visited the campus. With minimal expectations and already thinking about staying in Lisbon, he decided to apply to Amazon. He explains why he did it: “One of the things that I gained after doing an MBA is the ‘can do’ attitude. I learnt that, when you really put in the required effort and have the right mind-set, you can do things that will amaze you”.
And that was the attitude that granted him his current job: a Senior Financial Analyst at Amazon based in Luxembourg. According to Ashish, this job doesn’t compare in any way to what he did before in terms of the sheer scale of projects and the impact on the business: “Right now, I am handling EU-wide projects where a small error can cost millions. Hence it’s really important to have an eye for detail”.
About the job, this engineer says: “The company is growing at a very large scale. Trying to innovate in such an environment is super challenging, but also super fun. It’s always day 1 in Amazon and that keeps you going every day when you walk in through those doors”.
About long-term projects, Ashish admits he doesn’t like to plan things in the long-term: “I’m really happy where I am right now. In terms of plans, I intend to travel a lot and see more of what the world has to offer. I also intend to spend more time with my family”.
Music: Bollywood (of course!), Punjabi, Indie/Folk Rock, Reggae & Pop
Book: Biographies & Non-Fiction
Movie: Drama, Action (Men of Honor, A Few Good Men, Gladiator to name a few)
Motto: Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail….
Born in Mumbai, India, and with a background in IT, Ashish Tiwari has been living in Luxembourg for the past year, where he works as a Senior Financial Analyst at Amazon. Throughout his professional path, he has worked in India, the UK and Singapore and chose to pursue his MBA in Lisbon.
Although as a kid Ashish wanted to be either a pilot or an astronaut, he always had a slight inclination towards data and technology. He also liked to disassemble and reassemble toys and clocks – sometimes he would be successful in this task, while other times learning from his failures.
The choice to become an IT Engineer was something natural, as he started programming when he was 13: “I was attracted by the ´detail´ part of it, to get to know things with some depth”. Today, he still has a soft spot for “ethical hacking”. As he completed his course at the University of Mumbai, he was offered two proposals by different companies, but decided to pursue a tech-driven role in Accenture, as it was closer to his family, where he stayed for over six years.
His ever-changing responsibilities at Accenture were marked first by analysing and evaluating systems to see if they met the business requirements, and later by the end of his tenure, doing risk and stakeholder management. He also worked for seven months in the UK and Singapore during this period. His focus during his time abroad was mainly on top banks, as an implant from Accenture, dealing with technology consulting.
“Although I loved my job very much, it was too technical and I was missing the exposure to the business side of things. I felt I needed to undergo a shift in my professional life, to take a year off to understand the business world, meet new people with different backgrounds and in-turn develop myself as an individual.” These are the reasons why Ashish decided to do an MBA.
According to Ashish, “when you really put in the required effort and have the right mind-set, you can do things that will amaze you”. With this mindset he decided to apply to The Lisbon MBA program as he wanted to pursue a one-year MBA with a small batch size, a strong mix of international experience and a good return on investment. From his experience, he remembers learning a lot from his peers who represented 17 nationalities.
He highlights: “It was interesting to compare how I used to work and what I observed in my colleagues. I tend to focus more on the vision or the end goal and not so much on the process. So, along the way, I may skip some steps of the process, as long as we get results. On the other hand, some of my colleagues were very organized in terms of defining and following processes. If we set up criteria as a group, we had to meet them. So, the effort that we had to make to work together and adjust to different cultural backgrounds and styles of work was really interesting in terms of self-learning and adapting.”
This proved very useful for Ashish when coping with different business environments. “From whatever I have experienced, business intentions in the UK and Luxembourg are very much about getting the results. The process is important, but the main focus is ´on getting the right results´. In India, my leaders had a long-term strategic thinking. It was essential to assess whether we were heading in the right direction and if we were ready for the time to come. In Portugal, I felt there was and still is a great vision for the future years, but sometimes it is lost with the execution.” These were some of the cultural differences Ashish experienced in the countries he worked in.
Towards the end of the MBA, Ashish had two proposals to work at two major Portuguese companies. He had almost decided to go for one of them, until Amazon visited the campus. With minimal expectations and already thinking about staying in Lisbon, he decided to apply to Amazon. He explains why he did it: “One of the things that I gained after doing an MBA is the ‘can do’ attitude. I learnt that, when you really put in the required effort and have the right mind-set, you can do things that will amaze you”.
And that was the attitude that granted him his current job: a Senior Financial Analyst at Amazon based in Luxembourg. According to Ashish, this job doesn’t compare in any way to what he did before in terms of the sheer scale of projects and the impact on the business: “Right now, I am handling EU-wide projects where a small error can cost millions. Hence it’s really important to have an eye for detail”.
About the job, this engineer says: “The company is growing at a very large scale. Trying to innovate in such an environment is super challenging, but also super fun. It’s always day 1 in Amazon and that keeps you going every day when you walk in through those doors”.
About long-term projects, Ashish admits he doesn’t like to plan things in the long-term: “I’m really happy where I am right now. In terms of plans, I intend to travel a lot and see more of what the world has to offer. I also intend to spend more time with my family”.
Music: Bollywood (of course!), Punjabi, Indie/Folk Rock, Reggae & Pop
Book: Biographies & Non-Fiction
Movie: Drama, Action (Men of Honor, A Few Good Men, Gladiator to name a few)
Motto: Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail….
